new-council-boundaries

Whether or not it was following a reminder from the Conservative Party at the end of last week or not, the Scottish Government has today announced that it agrees the suggested new boundaries for council ward boundaries. (See below for a clearer version of the changes in Edinburgh)

The Tories urged the SNP to ‘get its finger out’ last week after they discovered that the boundaries had not yet been agreed just eight months before the next council elections.

The recommendations of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland include changes to the number of councillors and the boundaries for the areas in which they will stand for election. Changes will be made to a total of 25 wards across Scotland.

In Edinburgh there will now be 63 councillors representing five wards with three councillors and twelve with four. The computation centred around allowing 3,800 electors per councillor, but since that ended up almost doubling the number of councillors they did a recount and have increased councillor numbers by five. The council, who were consulted on the change, had agreed that an increase in councillor numbers was necessary as historically the council area had been underrepresented.

The only name change has been in Morningside, but boundary changes have been made throughout the council area to align with natural communities.

The changes are as follows:

Almond Ward –  increases from three to four councillors

City Centre –  increases from three to four councillors

Colinton/Fairmilehead – remains the same – three councillors

Corstorphine/Murrayfield – remains the same – three councillors

Craigentinny/Duddingston – increases from three to four councillors

Drum Brae/Gyle – remains the same – three councillors

Forth – remains the same – four councillors

Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart – remains the same – three councillors

Inverleith – remains the same – four councillors

Leith – remains the same – three councillors

Leith Walk – remains the same – four councillors

Liberton/Gilmerton – remains the same – four councillors

Meadows/Morningside – becomes Morningside – four councillors

Pentland Hills – increases from three to four councillors

Portobello/Craigmillar – increases from three to four councillors

Sighthill/Gorgie – remains the same – four councillors

Southside/Newington – remains the same – four councillors

The commission state in their report that they have taken notice of rivers and other boundary features where the boundaries of some wards have been changed. There was a point when it was believed that the village of Colinton might be split in two by a boundary realignment.

The review began in February 2014 and the government’s hope is that, with these changes, voters will be more equally represented.

Council elections will take place across the country in May 2017.

This is the map which shows boundary changes although we have to say that this is less than clear so you may wish to look at the full report which has 17 individual maps for each ward. Click here!

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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.